Charity welcomes Sandi Jackson if court orders community service

CaptionJesse Jackson Jr. leaves halfway house

Jose Luis Magana, AP

Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. waves to reporters as he leaves a halfway house in Baltimore on June 22, 2015. He's been living at the halfway house since his release from a federal prison in Alabama in March. He was convicted in 2013 of misuse of campaign funds.

Former U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. waves to reporters as he leaves a halfway house in Baltimore on June 22, 2015. He's been living at the halfway house since his release from a federal prison in Alabama in March. He was convicted in 2013 of misuse of campaign funds.

WASHINGTON — A day after ex-Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. identified his preferred prisons, a well-known charity has written to the judge who will sentence him and his wife, Sandi Jackson, and expressed interest in "hosting" her "in her performance of community service."

Sandi Jackson, a former Chicago alderman who pleaded guilty to failure to report about $600,000 in income, faces up to three years in prison. Prosecutors want her sentenced to 18 months in prison. Her lawyers are seeking probation.

A lawyer for Jackson Jr. on Monday identified federal correctional facilities in Montgomery, Ala., and Butner, N.C., as the former congressman’s top choices — should he be sent away. He faces up to five years for looting his campaign treasury of $750,000 and spending it on luxury goods, vacations and even two stuffed elk heads.

In a letter filed today in court, the non-profit group Martha's Table said Sandi Jackson had begun volunteer work there.

"We have a long history of accommodating those completing school- or court-mandated community service," Meaza Yalew of Martha's Table wrote to the federal judge who will sentence the Jacksons.

Their court appearances begin tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. Chicago time before U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who is not related to the couple.

Martha's Table helps the poor with food, clothing and educational programs. President Barack Obama and the first family have dropped in on the day before Thanksgiving to pass out turkeys, stuffing and other holiday goodies.

Timeline: The fall of Jesse Jackson Jr. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., whose once promising future collapsed amid federal ethics investigations and a diagnosis of mental illness, resigned Nov. 21 from the South Side congressional seat he held for 17 years. Jackson's troubles date back to 2008 when allegations...

A Civil War-period coat worn by a nurse — a woman from a prominent Mathews County family who some believe was the only woman to be commissioned as a captain in the Confederate Army — is among the nominees for Virginia's Top 10 Endangered Artifacts program.

NAVAL STATION NORFOLK — The Navy on Saturday commissioned the USS John Warner, adding a 12th Virginia-class submarine to the fleet and celebrating the legacy of its namesake, the retired senator who was hailed as a statesman.